HP is no longer an equal opportunity employer?
“The Hewlett-Packard Company is an equal opportunity employer” is what the site says, and that is what I used to believe till I got a few emails from a few job consultants about some .NET and UNIX positions with HP” with an added line “only female candidates can apply”
Now forget for a moment that fact that the people who sent me this email did not do their homework and sent me an email that is not related to what I do or what I want to do. A larger issue here would be “Is HP still an equal opportunity employer”? Or has there been a change in the policy of being an “equal opportunity employer”?
To me this sounds like gender bias, or discrimination based on gender. Would a female employee make a better .NET or Unix programmer than a male employee? If not, then is this not gender bias? While the logical answer would be that there is nothing that proves that female employees make better .NET or Unix programmers, maybe some secret HP research proves otherwise. Or maybe HP should just stop saying that it is an equal opportunity employer.
Update: Thanks to Nithin for pointing this out. This could have been mistake on the part of the consultants or on the part of HP. However, since I got similar mails (saying only female candidates can apply) from multiple consultants, I suspect that this is part of job description that went to the consultants from HP and not something that the consultants made up.
Posted under: Thoughts
Tagged with: discrimination, employee, equal opportunity, equal opportunity employer, female, gender, gender bias, Hewlett-Packard, HP, male
